diff --git a/racket/collects/xml/private/reader.rkt b/racket/collects/xml/private/reader.rkt
index 94654945d3..3cbf978453 100644
--- a/racket/collects/xml/private/reader.rkt
+++ b/racket/collects/xml/private/reader.rkt
@@ -306,7 +306,7 @@
                                          [(pcdata? entity)
                                           (string->list (pcdata-string entity))]
                                          [(number? (entity-text entity))
-                                          (string (integer->char (entity-text entity)))]
+                                          (list (integer->char (entity-text entity)))]
                                          ;; more here - do something with user defined entites
                                          [else '()])
                                        (read-more)))]